Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 8

Happy Today

I've always been reluctant to let go of December, month of colorful lights and tinsel and feasting and family and days off, to enter cold stark January, whose main claim to fame is that it's the month in which I start preparing for tax season.

But as I write this, we still have a bit of celebration and holiday ahead; it's not yet New Year's Eve. And maybe the resolution I ought to make is to stay in the present more. Or, as Marlo Berliner put it in an incredible post at YA Outside the Lines: "The greatest gift? Being able to enjoy the moment you're in and being grateful for it. For it is a gift, not a given."

As far as my writing life goes, much of 2017 has been about accepting, and even enjoying, where I am. I don't know what's next. I've had some glimmers of what it might be, but I don't know yet. Right now I'm in an in-between time, an uncertain time. The blessings of being in such a time include: Rest. Variety. Possibility. 

Happy New Year, but most of all, Happy Today.

Connection

"It allows that greatest consolation of literature, which is to pierce our separateness, to show us that, in this business of being human, we are not alone."
--Dani Shapiro, Still Writing

In this sentence, Dani Shapiro captures perfectly the essence of why I read--and why I write, too. Sure, I read to be entertained, informed, transported--but most fundamentally it is for that piercing of separateness, for that connection. I get it sometimes from music and occasionally from movies or TV, but most consistently from reading.

Still Writing is a book that's been recommended to me many times, but I was never in the right frame of mind to read it before. And it's really speaking to me now. There's nothing like the right book at the right time. May you find your book for this moment!

On a separate note, if you'd like to do something easy and positive this holiday season, click on over to Nathan Bransford's annual blog fundraiser for Heifer Intl. Just a comment or retweet means an increase in Nathan's donation, and there's a link for you to donate yourself if you like.

New interests

I'm still here. I've been writing less and doing more reading, thinking, listening, reflecting. I've been taking time to watch news (a lot of news) and taking time to turn off the news. I've been recharging with a sudoku puzzle or a library book or a walk.

My writing has changed. Since completing my most recent novel manuscript (unpublished) about a year ago, I've been writing mostly nonfiction. I've been reading a lot more nonfiction--and yet I've developed new appreciation for novels when I dip back into them. Nonfiction is beholden to the literal facts, which are not always neat or satisfying. But we can engineer fiction so that the story reads economically--no using five different characters where one will do, for example--and we can make sure every detail has meaning and significance. We can answer the major questions, never needing to leave holes in the story as we sometimes must do in nonfiction.

So I still like reading novels, but I'm embracing both short and long nonfiction with increasing interest. I don't know where this will take me. Part of the joy in artistic pursuits is just this sort of exploration, this finding out.

The luxury of Pause

"Yes, writing can be complicated, exhausting, isolating, abstracting, boring, dulling, briefly exhilarating; it can be made to be grueling and demoralizing. And occasionally it can produce rewards. But it's never as hard as, say, piloting an L-1011 into O'Hare on a snowy night in January or doing brain surgery when you have to stand up for ten hours straight, and once you start you can't just stop. If you're a writer, you can stop anywhere, any time, and no one will care or ever kow. Plus, the results might be better if you do."
--Richard Ford, "Goofing Off While the Muse Recharges," in Writers [on Writing]: Collected Essays from The New York Times

Time for change

Creativity loves routine--that is, the Muse shows up when she knows where to find us. A regular writing habit often spurs productivity.

And creativity loves change, newness, variety, the things that let fresh air and new subjects and new styles into our work. Lately I've been trying some new things, not only for the sake of creativity, but to keep my life from getting stale. I've said yes to a few opportunities that edge me out of my comfort zone. 

This year I've cleared some things out of my life, and now there is room. I don't know yet exactly what will fill that room. I'm just getting ready.

Same song, different day

Just now, I heard a song that I've heard hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. And for the first time I understood that a word I've always heard as "pain" is almost certainly "paying."

Either word works in the context of the song, and we've long been accustomed to not catching mumbled or slurred lyrics, or not understanding them even if we do (such as the neologism "pompitous" in Steve Miller's "The Joker," or the entire song "Whiter Shade of Pale"). But it still makes me marvel whenever I discover something new in something old, when I finally get a reference that always floated over my head before, or when I see the familiar in a whole new light.

One reason I like to reread is that I like to see how works change as I understand them better, and as I grow and change myself. Some works lose their luster over time; others gain. Nothing is static, even when the words themselves don't change. Society changes; we change; our tastes change. One work of art can bring multiple experiences.

The reader-writer conversation

I read for the moments when I can say, "Yes, that's exactly how the world is, but I never thought about it before!" And for the moments when I say, "Yes, that's what I've always said to myself, but didn't know if anyone else felt the same way!" And for the moments when I say, "I had no idea what that experience was like, but now I'm glad I have seen into someone else's world." And for the times when I say, "No, the world isn't like that!" and mentally argue with the author.

All of it lifts me. Which experience I go for depends on what mood I'm in, what I need at the moment: education, comfort, escape, reassurance, stretching, challenge. In this season of thankfulness, I'm thankful there are so many books, and I'm grateful I've been able to contribute to the conversation in whatever small way.

Going there

The story wasn't working, and I couldn't figure out why. And then I realized: the two members of this broken relationship had to confront each other. All the main character's internal musings about the conflict would never be as productive, or as interesting, as her facing the other person and letting us see the conflict play out. Asking the questions she needed to ask; saying the things she needed to say. 

Backing away from conflict is one of my weaknesses as a writer, and I continually have to push myself to go there. Because that's where the story is.

Musings on a quiet day

Here are a couple of quotes I've found thought-provoking, both from Alexandra Fuller's Leaving Before the Rains Come:

"'But we cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.'"

"'Although it's worth remembering it isn't supposed to be easy ... Easy is just another way of knowing you aren't doing much in the way of your life.'"

In the first case, Fuller's quoting Jung; in the second, she's quoting her father. For me, they are reminders that things change, and we change. We should keep questioning our settled notions, even our notions about ourselves and what we want and where we are going. And if things are tough, it doesn't necessarily mean we're doing it wrong.

Starting over

This was my day to post at YA Outside the Lines, this time on the topic of "starting over." My take is here. A sample:

"Sometimes it seems as if we’re in a rut, doing the same thing, seeing the same people, going to the same places. Yet if we pay attention, we see that nothing is exactly the same ..."